Tag: personal challenge

It’s been a minute, but I finally finished the last book in this personal challenge I created for myself, so it’s finally time to move on!

I’ve gained some new followers since I last spoke about this, so I’ll briefly summarize: about a year and a half I started a challenge called the New York Times Bestsellers Birthday Challenge. Basically, I read one book off the NYT Bestsellers List from my birthday week every year from the year I was born until now. It’s been a trial and error process figuring out how this fits best into my reading schedule and habits, but I have low expectations for myself and just read the books when I get to them.

The gist of the challenge is this:

Four books will be chosen from the New York Times Bestseller List from my birthday week every year.

I’m sticking with the adult hardcover list because children and YA lists weren’t added in until much later and wanted to keep it as consistent as possible.

Of those four books, two will be fiction and two will be nonfiction.

The four books chosen will consist of:

The book that holds the #1 spot from each column

The book that holds the longest spot from each column (largest # of weeks)

The last few books I had chosen had been Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver from the 2001 list, and The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen from the 2002 list. I finished Prodigal Summer in less than two weeks, but The Corrections took me about two months. (I honestly can’t believe how excited I was to read The Corrections, what a bummer 😑) I’m really just aiming to continue this challenge at whatever pace best suits the books I choose. Continue reading “NYT Bestsellers Birthday Challenge: 2003”→